Thursday, July 12, 2001

I don't know what it is, what the core reason is that the New York Mets have gone from the World Series to also-rans in just one season. There are plenty of places to point the finger, but it's hard to pinpoint one specific reason. Comment.

The struggle for human rights ennobled by the sacrifice of men like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., South Africa's Nelson Mandela has come to this. The American Civil Liberties Union is bringing suit against a Jackson Heights landlord who refuses to let men wearing dresses use the ladies room in his office building. Comment.

It appears that the city and state have reached an agreement with the Mets organization on the financing of $500 million stadium that will replace the existing Shea Stadium. Although we confess to a measure of nostalgia for the stadium where the "Miracle Mets" taught us to believe, we understand that time marches on. The time has come to build a new stadium. Comment.

Mike Jarvis said he and his staff were shocked when point guard Omar Cook announced his decision to leave St. Johns University after just one year to declare himself eligible for the NBA Draft, a decision Cook made just a month after the Red Storms final game of a 14-15 season. Comment.

The snug environs and wood paneling that shadow the court at Hunter College are typical of what you might see in the gym of a Division III basketball program. The collection of talent that congregates on the purple-rimmed playing floor for the Nike Pro City Summer League Tuesday and Thursday nights, however, is not. Comment.

When Artie Cox was searching for a name for his organization, the Astoria resident wanted more than just a catchy acronym to describe some of its basketball teams. He wanted the name to truly embody his plan to help kids beyond the basketball courts. Comment.

In Monday nights big game against the Long Island Tigers, it was the little things that did in the Bayside Yankees Junior Americans. Little things like lead-off walks and errors proved to be the difference as the Tigers topped the Yankees, 10-6, at Mount St. Michael in the Bronx. Comment.

While Mike Cuomo hasnt usually been the first manager in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League to crack a smile this summer, the Metro Cadets skipper may have been able to force a grin after his teams play in a weekend split with the Long Island Collegiates at St. Johns this past Saturday. Comment.

The Midville Dodgers college team won just one of four games over the weekend against the two top team in the Federation Amateur Baseball League, splitting a doubleheader with Throgs Neck Saturday and losing the first game of a twin bill with the Condors Sunday before the second game was called after the fifth inning with the teams locked in a 2-2 tie. Comment.

Several teams have already been sent home for the summer in the eight District 27 Little League tournaments, with several other teams poised to make a run at the championship, said Ed Chrzastek, one of the district administrators and the former president of the Ridgewood-Glendale-Middle Village-Maspeth Little League. Comment.

Eight weeks of soccer fun culminated on June 24, with an Olympic-style closing ceremony. Forty-four youngsters ages 5 through 10 made up the six teams which competed through May and June on the Cross Island YMCAs backyard field. Comment.

Let me tell you about Julia Harrisons handshake. Way back in 1996 her hand was a cement block in the hands of a rookie reporter. It crushed, it intimidated and it impressed. But then in those days Flushings Democratic city councilwoman was only 76 or so. Comment.

In the early 1990s, the Guardian Angels were ubiquitous in New York City, patrolling the subway and streets day and night. These young volunteers were often hailed as heroes for their fight against bullies and petty larcenies. Comment.

It would be ideal if we could treat soil nutrition in much the same way as the federal government requires labeling of items in the supermarket, allowing us to see the minimum daily requirements of a particular nutrient and how much of it were getting in the food product. Comment.

Every weekend throughout the summer you can find Alexander Kenner sitting on the same corner of Baisley Park laughing and joking with anybody who stops. Kenner, a neighborhood institution, has been selling watermelons out of the back of a U-Haul truck at Baisley Boulevard and Lakeview Road since 1992. Comment.

Haydee Zambrana, who hoped to be the first Hispanic to win a boroughwide office, said Tuesday she had pulled out of the race for Queens borough president and had thrown her support behind Carol Gresser. Comment.

A $160 million project to revitalize the sewer system in Bayside and to create a new waterfall park in Oakland Ravine that was originally slated to begin this month has been pushed back until later this year, civic leader Jerry Iannece said this week. Comment.

Several borough leaders have pulled out of a lawsuit against the New York Power Authority, saying a potential deal being brokered by Silvercup Studios and the borough presidents office would do nothing for the community. Comment.

The superintendent of School District 30 promised Tuesday to form teams that would address parents concerns that children from Queensbridge Houses perform worse than their peers in district schools. Comment.

Doe Fund workers descended for the first time Monday on Rego Park for what is to be a daily clean-up operation brought about by state Sen. Dan Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) to transform the areas commercial neighborhoods. Comment.

Although the city has promised to install traffic lights at two intersections that residents of Middle Village and Glendale have long considered dangerous, community leaders are voicing concerns that the solutions will only create more problems. Comment.

Brown belt Tatorka Taskova fixed her eyes on the small plank held by her instructor, Joseph Froman, at S.Y. Kims Tae Kwon Do school on Horace Harding Boulevard in Bayside last month. Seated at a judges table was the schools owner, Master Sin Yung Kim. Comment.

Democracy is alive and well in southeast Queens where more than 30 school teachers, district leaders, civic activists and legislative aides have rushed in to fill the void when the new term limit law removes the areas three city council members Jan. 1. Comment.

In one of the most bizarre cases of he said, she said in Queens politics, city council candidate and longtime community activist Joyce Shepard filed a $10 million lawsuit against her former campaign manager last week after he created an allegedly defamatory website about her. Comment.

A Long Island man accused of shooting a St. Johns University football player who is now paralyzed and wounding a 19-year-old pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of attempted murder in the March dispute that spilled over onto the Jamaica campus. Comment.

More than a year after alerting the community to contamination at the old West Side factory in Jamaica, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has not cleaned up the site because of a lack of funds. Comment.

After the start date was delayed in December, a 14-month city project to install a network of sewers, watermains and catch basins near the Whitestone Expressway began on Monday, snarling nearby traffic. Comment.

A former New York City police officer from Jamaica Estates who had been accused of accepting bribes to protect a Flushing nightclub that allegedly operated a prostitution business frequented by Chinese patrons pleaded guilty last week to tax-evasion charges, authorities said. Comment.

The results of the 2000 census do not accurately reflect increases in certain segments of the citys Hispanic population because the results were skewed by questions that gave respondents too much latitude in identifying their country of birth, an urban research group said. Comment.

Tony Avella, president of the College Point Sports Association, said Monday construction began this week on the 22-acre ballfields that have been closed for nearly five years after subgrade landfill was dumped there. Comment.

Many were looking forward to a concert by the New York Philharmonic scheduled for Friday evening at Cunningham Park, but some Orthodox Jews were upset that the event would be performed on the Jewish Sabbath, observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Comment.

Eleven employees from three video stores in Flushing were arrested in late June and charged with reproducing thousands of counterfeit tapes of popular movies like The Matrix and American Pie, the Queens district attorney said last week. Comment.

For the first time in the Green Partys brief history as a bona fide party in New York, there will be a primary election in September for the city council seat in Flushing, a race between an ultrasound technician and an urban planning consultant. Comment.

The 23rd annual Thunderbird American Indian Mid-Summer Pow-Wow will be held at the Queens County Farm Museum, 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Floral Park, from Friday July 27 through Sunday, July 29 - three days of intertribal Native American Dance competitions. More than 40 Indian nations will be represented. Comment.

A new four-story building under construction on 42nd Avenue in Bayside could be home to medical offices, but it will also be the nighttime residence of machines using radioactive materials, according to a letter filed with the city Fire Department. Comment.

A Woodhaven Hindu priest has been sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman member of his religious congregation who visited the clerics home seeking his counsel. Comment.

When official word came down shortly before 10 a.m. Sunday that an Israeli solidarity rally had been postponed because of bad weather, the sidewalk was empty except for a handful of people and a steady stream of raindrops. Comment.

The Kew Gardens-based low-fare airline JetBlue has announced it will start service out of Dulles International Airport in Washington this fall, with two daily flights to northern and Southern California. Comment.

There was one thing the city Buildings Department had to say to a Whitestone contractor and Staten Island architect building a Korean church on 249th Street in Little Neck this week: Not so fast. Comment.

A Nassau County Court judge was indicted last Thursday on charges of stabbing his wife in the back during an argument last year in their New Hyde Park, L.I. home, the Queens district attorney said. Comment.

Decrying an MTA proposal to close more than 122 subway booths across the city, state Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan (D-Ridgewood) and Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer began a petition drive at Queens Plaza subway station Monday to oppose the plan. Comment.

The 108th and 114th Police Precincts both experienced drops in overall crime in the first half of the year from comparable 2000 levels, although the 114th Precinct recorded significant jumps in rapes and felony assaults, police said. Comment.

An Astoria hardware store has reopened in a nearby warehouse after it was destroyed in a deadly Fathers Day explosion, which fire officials said was accidentally ignited by two teenagers who have not been criminally charged. Comment.

The British company that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wants to hire to manage LaGuardia and JFK, two of the airports now run by the Port Authority, has gone to court to challenge its firing as operator of the Harrisburg, Pa., airport. Comment.

Some residents of 212th Street in Bayside think the peaceful future of their quiet street could be short-lived after the Bay Terrace Shopping Center repositioned a nearby parking lot entrance last month to directly align it with the residential street. Comment.

On a warm summer day when the mercury hit 90 degrees, media mogul and Republican mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg rolled up his sleeves and spent Tuesday morning touring the downtown Jamaica business district. Comment.

The Flushing YMCA 138-46 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, presents YouthBuild, a job-training program for young adults between the ages of 17-21. Students receive extensive training in different building trades and work on their GED diploma. Job placement is available to all students. 718-961-6880 Ext. 142. Comment.

We always like to hear from the kids themselves - what's going on in their school or neighborhood, and what they think. We also welcome original writing, play and movie reviews, reports from schools, poetry, drawings, and photos. Comment.

The three Tony Awards that Mel Brooks won for "The Producers," currently on Broadway, can take their place on his trophy shelf. next to his Academy Award for the screenplay of "The Producers." Following this 1968 film, Brooks quickly became one of the most successful creators of screen comedy, with a series of movies that lampooned the western ("Blazing Saddles"), the horror film ("Young Frankenstein"), the silent movie ("Silent Movie"), science-fiction ("Spaceballs") and other Hollywood genres. Comment.

"The line to get in to see Jackie O's duds at the Met wasn't this long," the writer thought as she stood in a very, very long line, waiting to get in to see Warm Up 2001, the fourth annual such, at P.S. 1 last Saturday. "And this on top of no elevators working at 74 Street and Broadway and the Queens trains being all messed up in general." Comment.